Andy, I was running LR 5 (and 4 before that) on my 17.3", Win8.1, i7 cpu, 8gb ram, 256gb ssd, 1tb hd laptop. The ssd has my LR catalog and previews, but the photo files are all on the hd. I left that computer in Japan though so before coming to Spain I bought a compromise laptop to use with LR: 14.1", Win7 pro, i5 cpu, 4gb ram, 750gb hd. I needed something smaller than the 17.3" for this sort of extended travel so looked at 15.6", 14.1", and 13.3" laptops. Naturally, while not using it I would like something the size of an iphone, but when using it I would like something the size of an 27" imac. Life is full of compromises though so I decided that the 15.6" was too big for this trip and the 13.3" was too small. The 14.1" is still usable with LR, but is small enough that it isn't too much of burden for the trip. While in Europe we each have a small, carry-on style rolling bag (in 2001 on our 4 month travels in Europe we each had backpacks) so the laptop fits easily into my rolling bag.

The 4gb is enough to use LR + have Firefox open with several tabs + Notepad, Windows File Explorer, etc.. Usually LR never uses more than about 2-2.5gb from what I have seen, and usually less, for the last couple of years. That is processing 16mp and sometimes 18mp raw files. Maybe if I was processing 36mp raw files it would use much more.

I will probably wait until LR 6.1 before upgrading. That is what I usually do. Let them fix some of the early bugs that are found. It would be nice though if Adobe has been able to reduce memory usage with 6. As soon as I noticed that the recommended ram was 4gb I had to go back and check earlier versions because I thought I remembered that for 5 they recommended 8gb. Turns out I was right.

Hi! I have as main desktop:i5-3.6, 8 gb RAM, 120 Samsung SSD drive + 1tb storage drive and two 27" monitors .For traveling and a work out of the house:Thinkpad (12") x201 (i5) with 8gb RAM, 120 SSD drive + plus removable 500GB HDD in the DVD bay. The notebook does have the dock station and at home connect to one off my monitors. Back to LR 6.0 - 1 - Problem with the presets - batch preset doesn't work right. 2 - slow file transfer from flash cards, I don't know why, 2 times slower (i tried in both computers.)The first problem is a major problem for me. As I know Adobe it's not last "bug" in new LR 6.0 release. I tried LR 5.x on the MAC computer (CPU, RAM ... = PC computer) It's make no difference compared to a Windows or Linux machine. In some operation (file transfer, editing) even slower than on Windows PC.

Part of the problem is you really need to have GPU support from the ground up rather than tacking bits of it onto a product. Also support is mixed depending on the graphics card some problems with AMD ones. There are also additional instructions in more recent processors that are not being used to their full potential.

I probably might pass on this for a while I see nothing urgently improved over LR5 to warrant an upgrade.

His computer is an i5, 16gb, Win7 with AMD 5450 chipset so he has turned off LR's use of the gpu until a later LR version fixes the problem. He says: " I still noticed LR6 is faster than LR4 is many aspects."

Yeah, I went to 8gb with my previous computer when I was using LR 4. While away from Japan for 10 weeks though I bought a 14.1" laptop to take that had 4gb. I used LR on it while we were traveling and it worked okay, but I had to be more careful about what other programs were taking up memory. With my regular computer with 8gb it is more comfortable.

I am still using LR 5.7 since I haven't really seen much to get me to go to 6. The performance improvements from using a GPU seem to be a mixed bag and mostly help people with very high res screens (Retina, etc.) and high end video cards. For most people, from what I have read, using the GPU actually slows things down so for them Adobe recommends turning off GPU use in LR. I think there are a few other performance improvements, but nothing big. LR CC has this new haze filter. LR 6 standalone doesn't get the haze filter slider control, but the functionality is there. You have to use presets to make use of it though. From examples I have seen of its use though it can help sometimes, but it isn't a miracle. Some photos I have seen look a bit better, but some look worse. I think many of the examples I have seen look worse because people cranked it up too much and the result, as one would expect, is over the top.